Lessons from the Philly Marathon

What I'm trying to learn from cramming in too many races this year.

I edit a column called “Ask Coach Jenny,” and when last week’s post on “why runners need an off-season” rolled in, it hit pretty close to home. A little too close to home. In the column, the ever-wise Jenny Hadfield suggested that the recent trend in back-to-back racing can be dangerous for runners and puts us at risk for burnout, injury, chronic fatigue, and at the very least, lack of time improvement.

“Sage advice,” I thought while posting Jenny’s column, then clicked to another tab to refresh the Philadelphia race-day weather forecast.

Yes, I ran the Philly Marathon exactly three weeks after running the Marine Corps Marathon, in a move that seems ridiculous and obsessive-compulsive to everyone I don’t work with and business as usual to everyone I do. It was my fifth marathon of the year and only my tenth marathon overall, so in other words, I had a pretty big year in running. For that, I blame nearly all of my coworkers for making incessant marathoning seem reasonable, enjoyable, and perhaps even a natural part of the human condition.

Needless to say, I set nary a PR in 2013.

I can picture Coach Jenny shaking her head in disdain. “Whether you're pushing the limit and trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon or running races for fun, the off-season is just as important an ingredient to your running success as the on season,” imaginary Jenny reminds me.

She’s right, of course. But it’s one thing to know that and another thing to actually put it into practice. Maybe Active.com should have some sort of security setting for repeat race offenders—like a five-day background check and waiting period between marathon signups. All I know is that I have a problem, and I’m working to address it.

My initial plan was to run Marine Corps Marathon as a goal race and then ride my summer training into the Philly Marathon, giving the latter whatever I had left and just running for kicks. After a disappointing finish at MCM, though, I started to think I could run a lot faster in Philly, since I’d set my PR there in 2012 and have since gone around telling everyone who will listen “it’s a great PR race.”

Things looked promising on race morning, when unlike at MCM, I prepared for the starting line under perfect conditions and in a great mood. I woke up at 2 a.m. air-boxing like a prize-fighter. My clothes were laid out. My playlist was ready. And after a recent commitment to lactose-free living, my GI situation has never felt so dialed in.

Things were going well until around Mile 18, at which point my piriformis decided to take an ill-timed nap in lieu of propelling me forward at the 8:15 pace I hoped to maintain. One minute I was trotting comfortably along the Schuylkill river, caught up in the scenery and the energy of the crowd and the fantasy of tearing into a soft pretzel, post-race. The next thing I knew, I was hunched over, walking, literallybutthurt about the sharp pains radiating from my glutes.

From that point on, I maintained a run-walk out to the 20-mile turnaround, where I shuffled back into a slow, reasonable gallop. On a different day, it might have been an 8.2-mile trail of tears to the finish, but like I said, I was oddly in a stellar mood. I high-fived a lot of drunk people. I pulled out the occasional dance move. I even took a beer hand-up from the spectators in Manayunk—a midrace first for me that I refuse to regret.

I was originally going to title this race report “Litany of Woes,” but since I still feel pretty upbeat about the experience, let me just dwell on the positive.

Here’s what I learned from running two marathons in three weeks:

Sometimes you have to learn lessons the hard way. On some level I knew running more wouldn’t necessarily mean running faster, but it’s a hard thing to really know until you see it play out in your own lackluster race results.

That said, a faster time doesn’t always mean a better race. I had way more fun at the Philly Marathon than at Marine Corps, despite running more than six minutes slower in Philly (3:54) and being in serious pain for the last eight miles.

A midrace beer is second only to a showerbeer in terms of positive, mood-altering drugs.

I’m really lucky to be able to run long distances this frequently without injuring myself, but that luck could run out at any time. Better to scale back now and get this piriformis thing worked out than to keep rolling the dice.

Philly has the best crowd support of any marathon I’ve ever run. Other cities occasionally have pockets of cheering friends and family, but after the half-marathoners split off, for the most part you’re running through quiet streets alone. Philly, on the other hand, looks like thousands of party buses have been littering spectators all over the course all morning. Also, they pronounce water stops “wooder stops,” which never ceases to be delightful.

Never assume the race expo will have what you need in terms of fuel. Philly experienced a citywide run on Margarita SHOT BLOKS over marathon weekend, and though I did my best to stay calm and ride out this state of energy emergency without panicking, I now blame my mid- and post-race nausea on not having my usual triple-sodium chews. Next time I’ll BYO-BLOKS to avoid the trauma of vomiting in the shower after the race... which is a thing that happened. (There’s no way it was the beer. Again, I refuse to blame the beer.)

Potentially world record-breaking or not, a blood blister the size of a sixth toe is not something you should Instagram.

​I’m burnt out on running marathons, and I need to take a break for a few months to just enjoy unscheduled running. Which I’ll do. …After next month's 30-mile Rocky Run and the 48.6-mile Dopey Challenge at Disney, that is.